Picture: JSE
Picture: JSE

THE JSE opened weaker on Tuesday morning as investors lost their appetite for emerging-market assets, after Federal Reserve officials signalled it could hike rates again as soon as April.

Stocks had been advancing after the Fed left rates unchanged at its meeting last week. The Fed’s decision hit the dollar, which boosted commodity prices.

But on Monday Atlanta Fed president Denis Lockhart became the second top US central banker to indicate the central bank could hike rates in April.

"In my opinion, there is sufficient momentum evidenced by the economic data to justify a further step at one of the coming meetings, possibly as early as the meeting scheduled for end of April," Mr Lockhart said.

Earlier on Monday, San Francisco Fed president John Williams also raised the possibility of an April rate hike.

The next Fed meeting is set for April 26-27.

At 9.30am, the all share index was down 0.77% to 53,407.30 points and the blue-chip top 40 index had lost 0.81%.

Platinums and resources fell 1.88% and 0.61% respectively while gold miners climbed 2.20%. Financials lost 0.95% and banks were down 0.68%. Industrials fell 0.75%.

Japanese stocks rose on Tuesday as a respite in the yen’s recent upward momentum boosted the shares of Japanese exporters such as car makers and precision machinery firms, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

The Nikkei 225 was up 1.94% and China’s Shanghai Composite index fell 0.64%.

Among individual shares on the JSE, ArcelorMittal was down 8.02% at R8.60.

AngloGold Ashanti firmed 2.05% to R210.47. Gold Fields was up 3.39% at R58.93. Impala Platinum was down 1.95% at R46.28 and Northam Platinum fell 3.39% to R42.50.

Clicks was 2.18% lower at R95.28. Shoprite fell 2.05% to R174.

AECI was down 4.79% to R89.50.

Illovo Sugar tumbled 6.26% to R19.31.

Adcock Ingram added 2.91% to R44.25.

Nampak lost 2.22% to R22.